Man, I wish I had a credential for the auto show. I wish I’d seen this up close and personal:

Somewhere in the middle of that herd is the 2009 Dodge Ram pickup. Although the stunt was a hoot, the Freep said the press had a hard time concentrating on the truck. As the press conference commenced, the milling herd found its own fun “mounting each other.” Flickr photog Vigo74 has a nice set here.

I’m glad NAIAS is going on this week, because the primary, just a day away, isn’t doing much to hold anyone’s attention, or even catch it. The GOP is said to be in a tight three-way race, with McCain perhaps holding a margin-of-error edge over Huck and Mitt. Michigan is supposed to be Romney’s walkaway, but as more than one Michigander has noted, all the people who remember George Romney fondly are now registered voters in Arizona and Florida. Slate’s Daniel Gross points out that Romney 2.0, besides being an expat, also represents everything a contemporary Mitten Stater should despise — a free-trading, private equity-lovin’, Muslim-hatin’ empty suit in a state that’s been badly bruised by the first two and currently holds the nation’s largest concentration of assimilated Muslims who don’t like being lumped in with Osama bin Laden. He’s also not only Romney 2.0, he’s a carbon copy of Dick DeVos, a rich-kid son of privilege (Amway) who tried to sell the same message to Michigan last year and got his head handed to him.

We’ll see. Maybe the Democratic vote-for-the-worst crossover will amount to something. I said last week that I’m a crossover voter of long standing; in Indiana, the only way to feel not totally irrelevant in many contests was to vote in the Republican primary, and I did so, many times. Some people think this is wrong, but I never lost a moment’s sleep over it, as I know in my heart that if the tables were turned, those folks would do it to the Democrats in a nanosecond. No prisoners, not this time.

So how was everybody’s weekend? Mine was eventful. I started a class in video editing at the Detroit Film Center. Of eight people in the class, five are journalists looking to update their skills; here’s guessing our group project will turn out to be a documentary of some sort. We watched some student shorts to get ideas, two of which were portraits of crazy people. There’s a time in your life when the ravings of people off their meds are interesting, but that’s in my personal rear-view mirror. I guess making short films about people who claim to get sustenance from drinking their own urine beats burning them at the stake or making them saints, however.

Friends, I have a week of furious work, with houseguests in the middle. Expect short shrift, but expect something. I’m still showing up this week, but you may have to carry the conversation.

For those of you wondering why I’m not writing more about the Michigan primary, coming up in five days, the NYT’s Nick Bunkley explains on the paper’s Caucus blog:

Because Michigan’s Jan. 15 primary violates Democratic National Committee rules, Senator Barack Obama and John Edwards withdrew from the state’s race, leaving Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as the party’s only major candidate on the ballot. (Mrs. Clinton has pledged not to campaign here.)

The alternative, for Edwards/Obama supporters, is to choose “uncommitted,” which sort of takes the oxygen out of a campaign: Vote for no one! I’m still undecided, but considering a GOP crossover to vote for McCain. He’s a grumpy old fart, but at least he thinks torture is bad.

Talk about setting the bar kinda low.

My local-local paper, tool of the management class that it is, goes all the way parochial and endorses local favorite Mitt Romney. Don’t think so. Mitch Harper once related a quote he attributed to LBJ former Ohio Gov. Jim Rhodes, who reportedly said Mitt’s dad, George, “couldn’t sell pussy on a troop ship.” The apple did not fall far from the tree.

About that endorsement — something about it smells canned to me. I googled random phrases with no luck, but I’m still thinking it was e-mailed whole from Fortress Mitt. It’s fluently written, for one thing, and reads like a campaign speech, heavy on bumper-sticker phrases and glibness: “In 2002, Romney was elected Republican governor of liberal Massachusetts. In just one term, he eliminated a $3 billion budget gap inherited when he took office by eliminating waste, streamlining government and offering economic reforms that stimulated economic growth in the state.”

See what I mean? Just a bit script-y.

A situation like Michigan’s, where the viable candidates are off campaigning in other states and a Yellow-Dog D like me is doing the primary crossover, leads to some strange moments. Dennis Kucinich made a big splash in Troy this week:

They treated him like a rock star, screaming in adoration and repeatedly giving him standing ovations when he said he would call for the removal of all troops from Iraq within three months of taking office, and advocated impeaching vice president Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush and charging them with crimes after they leave office.

Imagine what they’d have done if he called for a public execution. They’d have lifted the little guy up and carried him around the room. Or maybe all that yelling was for his wife.

Kos thinks Mitten State Dems should vote for Romney, but not because he streamlined government and raised five sons. A pretty basic argument:

Meanwhile, poor Mitt Romney, who’s suffered back-to-back losses in the last week, desperately needs to win Michigan in order to keep his campaign afloat. Bottom line, if Romney loses Michigan, he’s out. If he wins, he stays in.

And we want Romney in, because the more Republican candidates we have fighting it out, trashing each other with negative ads and spending tons of money, the better it is for us. We want Mitt to stay in the race, and to do that, we need him to win in Michigan.

In any event, crossing over and voting for candidates I don’t endorse is a very familiar experience for me. It’s just like living in Indiana.

So, with that, then, let’s get to the bloggage:

“The Bucket List” looked like a p.o.s. from the get-go, but it does give us the pleasure of reading Roger Ebert’s withering pan. Ebert knows a thing or two about how people with cancer really experience life:

I’ve never had chemo, as Edward and Carter must endure, but I have had cancer, and believe me, during convalescence after surgery the last item on your bucket list is climbing a Himalaya. Your list is more likely to be topped by keeping down a full meal, having a triumphant bowel movement, keeping your energy up in the afternoon, letting your loved ones know you love them, and convincing the doc your reports of pain are real and not merely disguising your desire to become a drug addict. To be sure, the movie includes plenty of details about discomfort in the toilet, but they’re put on hold once the trots are replaced by the globe-trotting.

I know you will be as astonished as I am to learn Jack Nicholson plays a crusty old fart, and Morgan Freeman a wise old man. What a way for Jack to end his career, with crap like this. He wasn’t even that great in “The Departed.” Maybe these guys should retire.

Our friend, neighbor and sometime commenter here, JohnC, makes it onto the Prairie Home Companion site with a short essay about loving and hating the Red Sox with his grandma. Among other things.

Thank you, Fark, for finding stuff like this:

BREMERTON — The 27-year-old Poulsbo woman told police officers she promised sexual favors to a man if he bought her alcohol early Wednesday morning. But after getting two bottles of inexpensive fortified wine, she used one to hit him in the forehead.

He had it coming, I’d say.

Friday! Friday! Friday! Have a good one.

One question: If the digital new media is supposed to be exploding all the old rules and not following any of the new ones, why do so many of its writers sound like Perry White dictating to the cigar-chomping rewrite man?

In Touch can exclusively reveal what actually happened after Britney Spears checked into LA’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center last week.

A source exclusively tells PageSix.com that Brit’s dad, Jamie, is the one who sounded the emergency on the red Phil phone once he learned his daughter was checking out early.

TMZ has learned Eminem was rushed to the hospital over the holidays.

OK, two out of three of those are old media with websites. But TMZ is new-media all the way, and they do it too. I guess it’s all Drudge’s doing, with his stupid fedora and Walter Lippman affectations. It’s amusing how well that old rat-a-tat-tat passive-voice stuff holds up, isn’t it? And how ironic that it’s used so often on gossip sites, where the news couldn’t be less consequential. By the way, is anyone ever not “rushed” to the hospital? “Eminem was driven to the hospital at a leisurely pace, observing all legal speed limits.” Don’t read that much, do you?

Enough woolgathering. I’m late getting started today because I had my tit in a wringer. Literally, more or less — mammogram time. You have to schedule those so far in advance it’s impossible to coordinate it with one’s less-ouchy days on the calendar, but I was as stoic as I could be. The rule of mammography is squeeze, squeeze, squeeze a little more and then one last big squeeze until the patient yelps, and then you take the picture. The technician gave me a little lecture on the importance of maximum compression (not while I was compressed, thankfully) — the flatter you can make everything, the better “doctor” is able to see what’s going on. Fair enough.

Because this was a digital picture, I was able to look at them immediately afterward. I once had a hairdresser (straight, male) whose wife called her breasts “the hanging bags of fat,” a term that’s stuck with me, and I think about it whenever mammography time rolls around, seeing them squashed under my chin and doing my deep breathing to keep from yelling.

Today I thought about a writing class I took once, led by a real blowhard, who was trying to impress upon us the importance of le mot juste, just the right word. He was doing it with a long story from Arthur Koestler’s novel “Darkness at Noon,” about two men being held in the same prison. They were on opposite sides of a wall, and couldn’t see or hear one another, but over time they started communicating using a tap code. One man is describing an old lover’s “breasts like champagne glasses.” The way the blowhard told this story was excruciating, going on and on about the tap code and how agonizingly slow it was as a means of communication, kind of like this story, and then he gets to the punchline, “breasts like champagne glasses.” And he looks around the room and beams, because isn’t that just the most incredible phrase to describe a pair of perfect breasts?

I sat there blankly, picturing the old granny in those Playboy cartoons. Because, to me, a champagne glass looks like this:

About two seconds later it occurred to me he was thinking of this:

Which just goes to show le mot juste is never entirely juste. But the granny is probably more comfortable during her mammograms than the saucer-boobed girl.

Have I lowered the tone? Good. Now to the bloggage:

New Hampshire proves you can never count a Clinton out. Discuss.

Liberals are sabotaging RedState’s website. (I think.) Jon Carroll explains.

And now, I’m going to write something someone might actually pay me for. Carry on.

Here’s one for you Hoosiers, via reader Ann Fisher, who spotted it on a Chicago-area food board:

I have in-laws who live in Fort Wayne. Every time we go there, we are treated to “beef” and noodles. I thought it was just a family recipe, but when I was in line at the Meijer’s, an 80 yr old woman informed me they were also having beef and noodles for dinner. I asked if it was a regional specialty, and she wasn’t sure, but told me it was a good way to feed a family of nine (!)

The thing is, it’s pretty vile stuff. I have a feeling, after some research, that it’s a drastic perversion of “Amish beef and noodles” from the Amish in that area. Only because both dishes are intended to be served over mashed potatoes. Nothing like a double dose of carbs. But get this. My in-laws serve it with a side of (drumroll) white bread rolls! 3 starches in one sitting!

I believe the iteration of this recipe that I was served consisted of *cans* of a beef product, possibly Hormel. I didn’t want to go into the kitchen to find out, after the dog-food like aroma wafted out. The noodles are actually kind of nice, thick, german spaetzely things. Thus my question- anyone know of this dish, and what brand the noodles are that are generally used? They are maybe 2 in long and 1/4 in diameter, kind of chewy.

There’s so much to love in that post. The assumption that Hoosier beef and noodles must be a perversion of the more authentic Amish dish, assumptions of Amish authenticity being rampant in Chicagoland. (Trust me, honey: The Amish invented canned beef. These people don’t have refrigeration, remember. You wouldn’t believe some of the crap they eat.) The “dog-food like aroma.” The utter bafflement at its presentation, ladled over mashed potatoes. But hey, nice noodles. Where do you buy them?

I can answer her question right off the bat: You don’t. Those kind of noodles you make, but it’s pretty easy. You don’t need a pasta machine, just a rolling pin, a flat surface and a knife. My Jay County-raised neighbor used to make killer chicken and noodles, and she thought making noodles from scratch was about as difficult as opening a carton of milk. As for the triple-starch presentation, all I can say is, if you spent the morning baling hay and were about to spend the afternoon stacking it in the barn, all those carbs would burn off by 2 p.m. and your stomach would start on the protein. The first and only time I ate noodles over potatoes I was doing the rigorous duty of writing a newspaper column, and the effect was soporific. Within 90 minutes I slipped under my desk for a 20-minute nap, and the residue of that meal I carry on my hips to this day. The problem with country cooking is the problem with evolution — it takes a long time for the diet to catch up to the fact you left the farm two generations ago, hence the ample bottoms you see in Indiana, and all over the midwest, for that matter.

As for canned beef, I cannot say. Beef and noodles, in my experience, is usually made with braised chuck or round or another inexpensive cut suitable for the rural proletariat. But it could very well be canned, too. Your in-laws may consider fresh beef something to be reserved for special guests, not Chicago foodies.

The post concludes with a link to the Allen County Public Library’s photo archive, where we see this peculiar local dish being served in a firehouse. This makes me nervous. What if the alarm went off 90 minutes after lunchtime? You’d never be able to rouse the firefighters from their carb coma. Your house would burn down while the safety forces slept off the potatoes.

I know I’ve said this before, but when I was doing talk radio? The most calls I ever got on a single topic? Was on noodles and potatoes, served together.

OK, then.

I have to admit, I feel sorry for Hilary, and it has nothing to do with the tears. Via LGM, I found this, where Kerry Howley draws the obvious conclusion:

Add to this useful list of the worst jobs in the world: consultant to any candidate with breasts. Show emotion and you’re weak; show strength and you’re a collection of servos. Respond to attacks with emotion and you’re “angry.” Respond with equanimity and you’re cold and distant. Shy from war and you’re too feminine to lead; embrace it and you’re the establishment’s whore. And the worst thing you can do? Acknowledge, in any way, shape, or form, the existence of sexism in these United States.

Word.

Since LSU pned the Buckeyes last night, this seems appropriate: Retired , 73-year-old cop kicks butt of armed, road-raging driver. The driver had a .357. The geezer, a cane. And it happened in? Slidell, Loozieanna.

Day two of the January heat wave threatens to drown us under torrents of rain, but what the hell. It’s still above 50 degrees. Have a great day, all.

MichaelG sends a photo of his weekend activities:

This is roughin’ it, California-blackout style: Coleman lantern, book to read, glass of wine and a roaring fire — all four burners.

Let me just say, on behalf of the journalists in the room: We have all covered a zillion fatal fires that started exactly this way. If you leave the room, turn off the stove.

The older I get, the less crap I need to do my job in the kitchen. But I also appreciate a fancy gadget, too — I use a plain old chef’s knife for most of the things a food processor is supposed to do, but when I need that food processor (potato pancakes, pesto and hummus, mainly), I really am glad to have it.

Some years ago, our friends John and Sam gave us a corkscrew that cost $100. The lever-action Screwpull was the first of its kind I’d used, and although there are many knockoffs on the market today, like the song says: The original is still the greatest. I’ve amazed many guests with its ease of use. Every time I open a bottle of wine, I think, what a miraculous gadget. If it fell to pieces tomorrow, I’d happily spend another $100 to replace it.

Which brings us to our $129 trash can.

Earlier this year I looked at Simplehuman trash cans with my sister, who has owned one for years. I thought they were nice, but like any sane person, that $129 was a bit steep for a trash can. It gave her the idea, though, and she gave us one for Christmas. There’s something both horrible and wonderful about a $129 trash can — the expense seems preposterous, but it’s … the iPod of trash cans. It’s beautiful. It has a small footprint, and a lid hinge that allows it to sit flush against the wall. The lid closes silently. It has an inner liner that eliminates unsightly bag overhang. And it’s dog-proof, important in that Spriggy, in his senility, seems to have forgotten his training in that little area. We’ve only had it since Christmas, and already I can’t imagine my kitchen with the old, primitive, $15 trash can.

Alan, our household’s leading appreciator of good design, flipped for it. (Although he calls it the Humanwaste.) He went out today and bought its baby brother for the bathroom. (Spriggy has also developed a taste for snotty Kleenex. No wonder his breath is so bad.) It was only $21. The first time he threw a tissue into it he was alarmed that the lid slammed “in an annoyingly loud fashion,” as he put it. Off to the website, where we learned with dismay that the bathroom model didn’t have “patented lid shox technology.”

See, this is the problem with a $129 trash can. Pretty soon you’re disappointed you didn’t get lid shox technology. No wonder people say, Die, yuppie scum.

How was your weekend? Mine was uneventful, except for my small encounter with the Westboro loons. They were protesting outside one of the most beautiful churches in the area, a Gothic gem run by the Presbyterians, adjacent to a public facility called the Grosse Pointe War Memorial. The presence of these knuckle-dragging goobers outside was a bit jarring, but what the hell, the First Amendment protects Larry Flynt and Fred Phelps, too.

Short entry today, because land sakes, it’s 55 degrees out there! In January! Headed higher! I’m taking a bike ride. So, bloggage:

The New Package, of course, for all you Wireheads. Join the discussion and make it jump. Now it can be told: This year’s heroin brand? “Got that Greenhouse Gas! It’s hot! Gas up!”

A fabulous story about the rest of the story of the attempted assassination of Gerald Ford by the loony Sara Jane Moore. The man who grabbed her arm, spoiling her aim and saving Ford’s life, was hailed as a hero until it was revealed he was gay, which led to the usual complications these things led to, back then. Also, the man hit by the richochet didn’t have a great rest of his life, either. It’s one Paul Harvey won’t be doing, I guess.

The publisher of Parade says the press run of yesterday’s edition was over when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, but the cover-story interview was “too important” to spike the whole run. Uh-huh.

Off to sync the iPod and enjoy an exceptional heat wave. Have a good one, y’selves.

Guess who showed up at a local soldier’s funeral Saturday?

How interesting. The mayoral primary in Fort Wayne last year was basically the Republican half of the Iowa caucuses in miniature — the religious right wing rallying behind their guy, and the country-club types having a hissy fit. This Sadlynaught post about the bitchiness of the Huckabee payback had a familiar ring to it. Who knew the Fort would be the GOP’s coal-mine canary?

One of the many millions of services provided over the years by my tech guru, J.C. Burns, has been a web page that scoops up current images from the Weather Channel’s site, with an emphasis on lower Michigan. I check it daily, sometimes several times daily. I’m beginning to see why old people can sit and watch the Weather Channel all day long. I’m generations removed from the farm, but I don’t feel fully informed on a day when I don’t know what’s going on in the country, meteorologically.

When MichaelG mentioned in the comments earlier today that they’re expecting 10 feet of snow in the Sierras today, I knew I had to check. And whaddaya know, big storm in Cali:

Drive carefully, Californians. Your weather is always either heavenly or hellish. But I bet the surf is way, way up.

Iowa means nothing. Pat Buchanan won the Iowa caucuses, remember. Iowa means everything. A black man, in a rural state, virtually unknown until four years ago? That’s something.

As for Huckabee, ha ha ha ha ha. It appears the GOP meltdown still has legs. Buy more popcorn. This could be good.

And that, I’m afraid, is about all I have to say about that. Years of living in an irrelevant state (Indiana, widely ignored by candidates from across the political spectrum) taught me not to waste hard-drive space thinking about political candidates who will be forgotten by the time I got a chance to cast my ballot (Steve Forbes, anyone?). The Michigan primary is in two weeks, but apart from a Romney ad that runs on the local news, I’ve seen little evidence of a campaign here. Of course, we’re being punished by the DNC, for daring to want a say in things. Takes a little of the wind out of the sails.

I admit to being a bit excited. Man, Obama. (I truly wish Chris Matthews would stop calling him a “son of Kenya,” however.) At this point, the Democrats could nominate a Hannibal Lecter/Britney Spears ticket, and I’d vote for it, so discontented am I with the status quo. The GOP has lost any claim on leading the country. In many ways, it’s just that simple.

Sorry no posts yesterday. I was tired. About once every week or 10 days, the collected weight of sleep deprivation collapses on my wee head, and there’s nothing to do for it but submit. That didn’t stop many of you from getting chatty in the comments, about architects, of all things. I love you guys. (P.S. I’ve never had to hire an architect in my life. Maybe that should be my goal for the second half of my life: Do something that requires an architect. Use NN.C commenters as consultants. I could use a new kitchen.)

One housekeeping note before we go further: Someone mentioned, in the comments, having to boycott this site until “The Wire” runs its course, but that won’t be necessary — all my Wireblogging will take place over at The New Package, with no mention here other than the customary link-whoring. The New Package is up and running, by the way, with a nice look at the numeric themes in season four, by our blogmistress, Virgotex.

And now, a shower. More later. Discuss Iowa, if you like.